News from Celaya, Mexcio

God has been good to us, below are some praises and prayer requests:

• Maria (48) confessed Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior on Pentecost Sunday.

• Gerardo (24) is seeking God’s guidance for marriage problems.

• Valeria was born to Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza on May 21st.

• Since Holy Week the women have been meeting on Mondays to pray for our new members, our neighborhood, our local authorities and funds to build on to our church.

• The church in Grafton, ND and Pastor Carlson are contributing to the building funds.

• Pray that God would be glorified at Gethsemane Lutheran in Celaya.

Pastor Milton Flores
Pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church

Youth Missions in Mexico

"Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. God does nothing but in answer to prayer." John Wesley

We had a great week with our young brothers and sisters from Minnesota and Michigan sharing the Gospel via dramas, puppets, testimonies, songs, tracts and good old fashioned preaching. This was the first time we have has so much participation from our Mexican brothers as sisters as well. We have twelve families to follow up for discipleship. We may have sparked a real interest in the church for more training in campaign evangelism as well as personal evangelism. We have been waiting a long time for that kind of interest.

Darwin Jackson

Marek's Powerful Testamony

Thank you for praying for our Lenten youth programs. The theme this year was the parable of the soils. Our students once again were able to be involved in over 30 of these programs during the 3 weeks before Easter.

On the day we touched on the topic of death Marek’s testimony was powerful as he shared about his accident and brush with death when he was 12. Just seeing Marek praising God in Bible school is such a great testimony to God’s grace. Please pray with us for his future as he is seeking a way in
which he can serve God even with his disabilities.

Tim Hinrichs

Prayer Requests

• Bible school facility – Betania in Bielsko-Biała

• Jaworze and Jasienica youth that were touched through Pastor Don

• Students: Marek’s future plans. We also pray for Boris (from Ukraine) who feels a call into the
ministry. Pray for Simeon that he makes a clear surrender to the Lord.

• Student outreach to Ukrainian Gypsies June 8-12. All our daily students (8) will be going on a 4 day missions trip to minister in the Ukraine.

• Ministry opportunities in July:

Tent crusade in Dzięgielów (8-16)
Evangelistic week in Zelów (23-29)
Bible Retreat Institute (17-27)

Tim will be involved as a Bible teacher in all three of these events.

We pray also for many opportunities to share about Bible school and reach future students.

Sowing with Tears - Psalm 126:5

“You were right, Pastor”, Eber said to me as I looked at him in shock. “What happened to you?” I asked.

Here I was standing before a young man who was just starting his 20’s and already was lacking an eye, displayed a huge scar across his face and was using crutches. “I lost my eye in a saloon fight over a girl. These guys ganged up on me, and one broke a bottle and hit me in the face with it. After I recovered from that I got drunk, had a car accident and broke my leg.”

What a contrast to the young man I had known before. When we started the church in Campo Grande, he was one of the first people I met. He was sixteen and represented all of that phrase, “Tall, dark and handsome”. He was about over six feet tall and looked somewhere between Tom Cruise and Elvis Presley. While helping me paint the walls of the church we talked about everything.

I presented the gospel to him and he accepted it readily, but it didn’t last long, like the seed that fell in a rocky place. He told me that in the future he wanted to marry a good Christian girl that had long hair and wore long skirts. Soon after we finished fixing up our little church hall he left town with a modeling agency. He showed up a year later with a scantly dressed pregnant girl and said, “Pastor, I want you to meet my wife”.

They hung around for a little while and he got a job in a local supermarket painting promotional signs. During that time I tried to minister to the both he and his wife, but soon they disappeared again. Now three years later he appears all disfigured and destroyed.

Sadly he says. “Pastor, you told me to follow Jesus and not the world, for the world robs you of the truly good things. Well, I didn’t follow your advice, and the world robbed me of everything”. I felt like crying. How sad it was to see him in that situation. Yet the worst part of this story is that though he wants to be freed from the life he is living, he is trapped and can’t let go. Like the monkey with the hand in the jar who won’t let go to get free.

Not different from Eber, I have seen many kids follow the same path with similar results. On the other hand, what gives me great joy is that I have also seen others take the hard and narrow way that leads to everlasting life. Many of those are active in the Lord’s work today in the Campo Grande church. At present we have eight people very involved in the church there who have been through our Bible School and Seminary program in Brazil. Two are from the first class that graduated back in the 1960’s and three are recent graduates of the four year seminary program and three have done the one year Bible School course. God is faithful when He says. “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.”

Jonathan Abel

Update from Silesia

As you know, we have been asking you to pray for a facility for our Bible school. This is still a priority for us but we would like you to be able to pray more specifically about a possibility we may have.

There is a retreat center called “Betania” in Bielsko-Biala, about 30 minutes from our home. It’s a large 3 storey facility owned by the Lutheran church on the outskirts of the city. In the last few years it’s hardly been utilized at all and the church wants that to change. In many ways this would be ideal but it is mostly a matter of church politics at this point.

Please pray with us about this possibility because it would also require our family moving and Peter relocating to a new school. Time is short but we are open to whatever would be in accordance to the Lord’s will.

Ben Jore - AFLC Short Term Missions

The following are excerpts from Ben Jore's recent newsletter.

Greetings from beautiful Minnesota where it appears that summer has finally arrived.

For the past year, I have been seeking God about my future and what he wants for me. For a long time I had no direction at all. Then things slowly started to fall into place. This past year, Zakaria, the Dean of Waama Bible School in Tanzania, began attending the Association Seminary and was given a room in the dormitory just down the hall from mine. Largely through Zakaria's invitation and times of prayer with him, God called me to go to Tanzania and teach at Waama Bible School.

Within a few weeks, God led me to an acquaintance of mine who seemed interested in the possibility. I have only met him one time, but God soon confirmed a call to Jesse Long to teach with me at Waama. Jesse is a 26-year-old pastor's son from Washington State. He has a big heart for missions and has made four missions trips to Brazil totaling almost a year. He has recently been working full-time and leading a youth group. Jesse's decision to go to Tanzania has postponed his plans to attend seminary. As of the writing of this letter, both Jesse and I are in the final stages of being accepted as Short Term Missionaries through the AFLC World Missions. We have committed to spend one school year there, but I hope that we can stay for at least two, maybe more.


It would be foolish of us to even consider embarking on a missionary endeavor like this without a committed support group to uphold us in prayer. To put it plain and simple, without prayer, we will fail. Would you consider becoming a part of the team by faithfully upholding Jesse and I in prayer? Jesse and I are also responsible for raising our own financial support. We will each be needing roughly $800 per month for our living and ministry expenses. In addition to this we each need to raise money for onetime expenses.

Would you consider joining my team as a financial partner? I am trusting in the Lord to provide for all our needs. I would be truly blessed if the Lord would lay it on your heart to partner with me and join in the work in Tanzania by supporting us in prayer and possibly even financially.

Ben Jore can be contacted at ben_jore@kastanet.org

How Do You Do It?

• What is the most effective way to learn a new language?
  
• How do you bring Christ to an animist?
  
• In what areas of ministry has God given me a passion?
  
• How does a missionary effectively equip leaders and entrust ministry to them?
  
• How do you avoid burn-out on the mission field?

These are a few of the many questions that we have been wrestling with this week at the Briefing Course of the World Mission Prayer League. AFLC World Missions has given us the opportunity to join WMPL for three weeks of training. We are now one week in and already feel very blessed, challenged and overwhelmed! It is great to walk through different missions-related topics with veteran missionaries instructing us.

We do need your prayers during this time. Please pray for our protection from the "flaming arrows of the evil one" (Eph 6:16). Prayer does not shield us from trials sent from God to test our faith, but from the attacks of Satan. When you pray for us, please pray that we would be delivered from evil and that God's will would be done (even if we are to endure trials). This past Tuesday night Judah was awake in the middle of the night with a fever, and Elijah was sick the day before. Our sense was that these were attacks from the Enemy seeking to keep us from the training we were to receive at the Briefing Course. We prayed accordingly, submitting ourselves to God and resisting the Devil (James 4:7).

Prayer Requests:

• Busy schedules: June is a very busy month with WMPL training followed immediately by the Annual Conference in Washington. Pray for efficient use of time and good priorities.

• Rhoda and I will both be sharing at the Annual Conference; Rhoda for the women on Tuesday and me for the evening service on Wednesday. Pray for us that we would be in tune with the Spirit as we prepare.

• We have had many churches invite us to come and share with them about our upcoming work in Uganda, and we are currently working on scheduling them in. Pray for the Lord's guidance in lining up our next few months.

Praises:

• The boys are doing fine settling in to a new routine here in Minnesota since moving from Minot, ND. It was a little bit rough at first with the change in schedules and with all of the busyness of moving, but they've been little troopers.

• We thank the Lord for WMPL and the opportunity to train with them.

• The Lord has raised up many faithful prayer warriors as well as financial supporters.

We praise God for each of you! Thank you for your prayers and messages. You have been a great encouragment to us.

In Christ,
Nate, Rhoda & boys